AN: "Airegore, I was the one who made the character, and I'd have to disagree. Avi is smart, he's seriously pissed, but understands the fact that going rogue from the beginning would be a stupid move. People trust heroes, not villains. If he plays the role of a hero, he'll have more access to everything. And miffed isn't the word I'd use to describe him considering the things I want him to do in the future…" BoredPotatoGod

For those who don't understand Avi, I thought BPG did a great job of explaining. Originally I was going to make Avi the typical perfect op character, but decided against it. So what I did is to Avi was not making him any less intellectually smart or any less of a prodigy. But I'm making him more of a kid. Kids tend to be scared to take risks despite understanding that they need to. Ultimately that's what makes Avi lose to Hoka in the first round. Hoka is an unpredictable monster, Avi expects this, but Hoka still puts him on his guard. Avi wasn't really thinking straight before the match so he didn't think of a strategy beforehand or even really prepare in any way. He still adjusts quickly to Hoka, evening the playing field. But right now Hoka is the most skilled in battle out of our four martially wise. I also did this to give Avi room to grow and mature throughout the story. He will learn from his mistakes and become like Doomsday, only failing once before coming back and never failing in that way again, only with Avi, it isn't linear, but exponentially. Also I'm going to be honest here, even if Avi prepared and thought about the battle and went in trying to win beforehand I still think he'd lose. I'm kind of making Hoka a bit like Saitama, plans just don't work, he crushes everything regardless. Again, Avi's a kid, which means despite all of his cunning and foresight, he lacks experience. And experience is irreplaceable.

Avi was stressed, he had decided to actually be a hero. Don't get him wrong, he constantly thought of getting home. But the status as a hero and access to the kingdom's knowledge and resources would make it much easier for him to get information. If he was a good hero people would be happy to help him. Besides, it's not like he wanted to be the villain, he just wanted to be with his family. The queen had said she'd find a solution, and the queen was trustworthy to a point. Meaning that she'd try to find a way for him to return home but wouldn't tell him any of her discoveries until he did what they brought him there for. This meant that he could steal the information from them later. So for now he'd focus on playing the hero role. Still… it didn't stop him from getting antsy and homesick. It was why he asked for a spar, to relieve stress. Not exactly to win but to unwind.

'The Queen knows this world better, which means she will be more efficient at finding information. I should let her take care of the information gathering and take it when she's done.' It still didn't stop Avi from periodically looking through the library every now and then. He'd made friends with Wilbur the Minotaur, turns out he was a very mellow and sweet beast human. The reason why he lost track of time and basically lived in the library was because 1. He loved books, but also 2. Humans were scared of him, which made him sad.

But none of those thoughts mattered at he waited in the large colosseum area the queen let them use, plainly aware of the presence of both the queen, F.B. and Emma in the stands, but the fact that both the king and their daughter Malty were nowhere to be seen worried him, but he had more concerns. This spar was physical only, it was at the queen's condition. Unleashing everything they had (which they would since both were competitive people) would outright demolish their coliseum.

With a sigh Hoka gave the last bit of medicine to Katsumi before with a thought the egg he had kept inside him came up, tightly wrapped in a cocoon of heat, while he didn't want to take the egg out, he knew that it would limit his capability in a fight, and a hit to the gut would flat out obliterate it. So with a sigh, he sat it on Katsumi, letting her curl up around it, her tail creating a nest around it.

The thump of the gate parallel to Avi signalled Hoka's arrival, he took large steps before only a good 30 meters separated them, Hoka cracking his neck as Avi flexed his power of air, making trails of wind through the air, and meeting it was Hoka releasing large volume's of heat, they both were prepared, tensed, waiting for the queen's word. Another promise they made was to minimize the damage to the stadium, which basically meant don't go near the walls. Since even without powers, they were physically enhanced to the point of superhumans. The floor was filled with sand to help them not damage the ground as well.

"START"

Hoka leapt into the air, closing the distance in an instant. If the one who knew his mind and powers the best was Avi then the one who knew his body the best was Hoka. Hoka had an odd past, when he had been transported he had been the average office worker. But before that he had been into illegal cage fighting, with him being the one in the cage. People around him said that Hoka had picked up violence and brutality like no one else had ever seen. When he fought, he fought to kill. And kill he did.

Hoka shaped his hand into a claw shape and swung right at Avi's eyes, Avi dodged backwards and just barely missed the claw.

Avi was surprised. No, he was shocked.

'Thank god I did my body tests, otherwise I might be dead.'

Hoka was glad that Avi asked to spar, taking care of the fox girl was aggravating, and he was glad to have been given a chance to draw some blood. But he wasn't stupid, he knew not to kill Avi, so he hoped Avi would be good enough to make him go all out. Which was why he stopped and waited for Avi to recover. Turns out he didn't need to, Avi countered immediately. He slammed his fist into Hoka's body, or tried at least. Hoka blocked it with his forearms and slid it away to mitigate the damage.

He beamed, "This is fun Avi! You hit hard!" And proceeded to lunge and Avi, this time aiming for his neck. This went on for another two minutes, with Avi only just dodging and attempting to throw back some damage, only to be blocked, parried, or dodged.

'He fights like a beast. It's an animalistic style.' Avi had studied multiple martial arts and mastered more than just a few, but the movements of Hoka were different. They weren't crude, but they were powerful. As if instead of learning how to fight, Hoka just learned the best way to move his body and exactly how to damage his enemy while minimizing his own.

'Ok, if he's a beast, then let's treat him like a beast.'

Avi adjusted, instead of anticipating a planned and coordinated attack he expected an animal lashing out. Animals dominated by emotion and instinct, and quickly he began to find it easier to dodge and counter. Finally, he struck a solid blow. Hoka had plunged his fist right at Avi's right eye, Avi just tilted his head and swung his fist up right into Hoka's chin. Hoka retreated back a few meters.

Splat! A glob of blood hit the ground. Hoka wiped away the blood from his chin.

Avi touched his face, Hoka had anticipated the dodge and scratched him. Earning him yet another shallow cut. It seemed as if Hoka was playing with his prey.

Hoka looked up at Avi with newfound respect, "It seems that I underestimated you. I won't hold back anymore." Then his image flickered, his erratic footwork making it hard to see where he was and where he was going. However Avi wasn't fooled.

'He's an animal.' Avi accurately predicted the knee that flew in from behind.

'I can't dodge this, so let's hit back instead.' The knee slammed into his shoulder as Avi pivoted and back handed Hoka in the face, his knuckles having enough weight to snap his neck back.

Avi clamped his mouth shut as he struggled not to cry out in agony. His shoulder had popped out of its joint. Hoka stumbled a few steps back. He looked at Avi in shock.

"Did you just… Avi did you just fucking bitch slap me?" Hoka began to laugh madly, "What the hell?!" He couldn't believe it, but whatever the case it was hilarious.

Avi heaved and popped his shoulder back into its rightful position, almost.

While Avi was smart, he knew he would need his arm back, but he was no doctor, so as it went back, the bone grinded in it's new unfamiliar position, making him whimper in pain. It worked, kind of. He knew first aid, one of the advisments was to never put back a dislocated bone back by yourself. But if he didn't do anything it would be a weak point and he'd lose. No, he'd die.

Hoka's smile widened, and sprinted forward, not giving Avi a break. By now Avi had completely adjusted to the animal in front of him… only Hoka wasn't an animal. Adjusting will only work if you're the only one adjusting. The thing is even though he acts and fights like an animal, Hoka still isn't a mindless beast. He's smart. He changes too, and because of this Avi ended up being slammed to the ground. He put up a good fight even after noticing Hoka was adapting to his adjustments, but in the end Hoka just plowed through anyway.

The fight was a good learning experience. Avi would review this fight countless times afterwards.

"I won't lose again." Avi said breathlessly.

"Don't get your hopes up." Hoka was pleasantly impressed. He saw Avi as a child. Which, to be fair, was an accurate assessment.

'This kid is gonna be a monster. Still… I won't let him surpass me that easily!'

Hoka stuck out his hand and helped Avi up. In the end it was a good experience for everyone, including the audience.

The Queen had healers on standby so they were deployed at lightning speed. The Queen and Emma approached the duo with admiration in their eyes.

"That was amazing!" Emma wanted to have both of them teach her, and was motivated to learn.

"What an incredible display of strength." Eloquent as always, the Queen hid her mouth with her fan, but her eyes were twinkling.

F.B. stared at both of them, quietly contemplating what he had seen.

'Interesting, bodily combat isn't my forte in the slightest but I didn't expect both of them to be better than me. I guess I'm the physically weakest of the four. Meh, it's not like I'll be doing any heavy lifting anytime soon.' He left without congratulating either of them.

After the healers determined that they were ok, Avi beelined back to his room. When he got there he sat on his bed and meditated. The room was dead quiet, silence helps the soul as they say. He went over the battle, made mental notes. He fought it over and over again. He discovered what not to do and what he should have done instead. Avi spent the entire rest of the day and night doing this.

While Avi was doing his mental simulations Hoka walked up to the stands where Katsumi had her eyes wide open in bewilderment. This was the first time she had woken up since Hoka bought her and what was the very beginning of her experience with Hoka? His gruesome fighting style. It wasn't ugly per se, but no one could deny how savage it was. She looked up at him in fear as he loomed over her.

"W-who are you?"

Hoka was confused, he was overjoyed that the girl had woken up. But why was she so scared?

"Me? I'm Hoka."

Emma was going to pester Avi to teach her martial arts. Even though Hoka was the victor she thought his fighting style much too barbarous, while Avi's was more clean and elegant. There was no way she could learn and actually implement Hoka's method without dying of embarrassment. But she saw that Avi was in a hurry to do something, and couldn't work up the courage to go and ask him to help her. So instead she decided to go get some combat experience for herself.

The books in the library had told her that the waves were not the only things that created monsters, simply the most dangerous. There were some areas people could go to fight monsters. Emma chose a field a bit off to the west of the city. It was inhabited by goblins and balloon monsters that looked perpetually angry. She stood on a small hill and surveyed the land, there were two goblins a couple minutes away, and 6 balloon monsters a bit off in the other direction.

Emma decided to go for the goblins. First she took out her card and fired it at one, she got a headshot. It sliced right through the goblin, from where she stood it looked as if the goblin had just fallen over for no reason.

"Let's fucking go! My control training with Erhard paid off!" Since she wasn't that far away the other goblin looked around in confusion before seeing her. The goblin let out a shrill war cry and charged her, but Emma was ready. She summoned a small bump in the ground that tripped the goblin, then right below the body of the goblin she raised a sharp spear right out of the ground. It impaled the goblin, the goblin just hung there, screaming it's head off. Emma winced, she thought the spear would kill it at once. She summoned five more spears from the ground and stabbed them all into the goblin. It was a chilling sight, the corpse of a goblin skewered by six spears and suspended in the air.

Emma knew it was just a goblin, but she still felt a bit sick.

She turned to the group of balloon monsters. She brought the card back to her and took out three more. As of the moment she only had four cards. They were getting easier to make, she thought she could make her goal of 52 within the next two weeks. It was incredibly difficult to control all of them at the same time so she only shot out two this time. They both exploded one, before boomeranging back towards her and each popping one more. Four down and two to go. The remaining two balloons began to float toward her.

She smiled and summoned a thick pillar from the ground that split into the fork shape at the end. One balloon went flying off into the distance, it was obvious she had made a hole as it flew in a very haphazard manner. The other was stuck on the fork, it tried to escape but was just fastened there with no hope. Emma wiped away her sweat and leisurely ambled over before taking a card and manually slicing apart the snarling balloon.

"That was fun."

Hoka didn't like the look Katsumi was looking at him with. It wasn't suspicion, but sheer terror.

'I don't think I'm that bad looking… I love people fearing me but she's supposed to be my party member!'

"Hey… I-"

"PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!"

They were in Hoka's suite, Hoka was sitting in a large chair and Katsumi was in the bed, shaking. Every time they made eye contact Katsumi looked down as fast as she could. This had been going on for the past twenty minutes.

"So… let's just take a breather. Are you hungry?"

Katsumi looked like she was about to object but her stomach growled loudly.

"I know a good place nearby. Let's go." Hoka stopped at the doorway, but then realized Katsumi wasn't following. She looked as if she didn't want to be anywhere near him.

"Are you not coming?"

"YESSIR!" Katsumi ripped the covers away from her and ran to his side. As if he would've done something if she didn't get near him as soon as possible.

'What am I gonna do about her.'

FLASHBACK

"Katsumi. I like her name." Hoka was reading her profile. Katsumi, 19, Fox Demi Human. "She's exactly what I was looking for. She's real hot too." He looked at her, "...well… that's not why I bought her so let's not take advantage of her that way." Hoka may be uncivilized, but he wasn't a rapist. F.B. got up from his chair across from Hoka and walked out of the room. The only reason why he was there was to make sure Hoka didn't do anything disgusting. But by now he knew no matter how rough Hoka acted, he was actually a pretty good guy underneath.

END OF FLASHBACK

'I didn't expect things to go this badly… damn it…" As they walked side by side down the street people kept on giving them looks. Katsumi looked healthy and was wearing nice clothes that covered her slave brand, but she looked so freaking terrified that people wondered what the relationship between her and Hoka was. No one seemed to care enough to do anything about it. To them all she was was a demi-human. A lesser being. When they got to the restaurant Hoka called the bartender over.

"Yo, can I get a menu?"

'Are there menus here?'

Luckily there were. A huge muscular man strolled up to their table.

"What would you like to order?" He pointedly ignored Katsumi and waited for Hoka.

"What do you want?" Hoka looked at Katsumi.

She blushed but Hoka saw her eyes dart to the brightly colored children's meal before moving away to the cheapest piece of bread.

"Do you want that? The kiddy thing?" Hoka questioned Katsumi.

"...no." Katsumi replied unconvincingly, trying to hide her excitement.

"Give her whatever that is." He pointed at the picture of the meal.

"If it tastes like shit I'm burning this place down. Give her the best." Hoka stared up at the man with a dead serious look, before laughing, "Just kidding."

He wasn't kidding. Hoka saw the way people looked at other races, they weren't the most tolerant people around.

Luckily for the restaurant the food looked amazing. Katsumi (for the first time since they had met) had a happy expression. Her eyes lit up and she tried but failed miserably to keep a straight face. The meal was devoured in a singular minute.

"Can we have another?" Hoka called out to one of the waiters.

"I'm ok." Katsumi looked down.

"No you're not, stop lying." And proceeded to return to his tomatoes.

'What am I supposed to do with her? I'm not good at cheering people up.'

Hoka began to mutter without realizing, "Maybe I should just let her go."

Katsumi's head, which had been buried in her plate, shot up. Her eyes widened in fear and began to water. Hoka could tell she was about to start bawling.

'Shit! What did I do now? What's going on? Why is she like this?' As questions raced through Hoka's mind he hurriedly tried to diffuse the situation. But to no avail. People looked over at the hysterical teenager and a man who looked oddly like the flame hero.

"Uhhhh… Nothing wrong here, look away. Everything's fine. Just continue your meal." Hoka waved his hands in the air, trying to get everyone's attention away. Katsumi just cried louder, blubbering something indecipherable.

'Damn it…'

Today was just not Hoka's day.

As they sat on the curb outside (they had been kicked out), Hoka peered off into the distance. It was getting dark out. Katsumi was sitting next to him, her legs drawn up to her chest, quiet sniffles could be heard from her every once and awhile, her ears and tails drooping sadly.

She muttered something into her legs.

"What?" Hoka couldn't hear her.

"Please don't leave me." Katsumi repeated, fear and something else lacing her voice as her voice trembled with emotion.

Hoka sighed, she looked so vulnerable.

He patted her head and promised, "I won't."

Katsumi began to cry again, but this time for a different reason.

Meanwhile in a certain castle a certain bitch was cooking up a dastardly plan.